Fangirl Alert: One Direction's FOUR

November 18, 2014

It's finally here! I finally got Four! I know it leaked and all that jazz but I was not about to listen to some low quality recording when I could wait a week and have the real thing blasting at full volume in my car. The first time you listen to an album is a special thing, and I wanted to do it right.

As soon as the album started I was fangirling right along bc I've been obsessed with 'Steal My Girl' since the first time I heard it. Like these dudes know how to make a song catchy as heck. And there's no denying that every girl who's listened to this track wants to be the girl they're singing about. Because if you haven't dreamed about being the girl in a One Direction song then you haven't really lived. (In case you were wondering, Niall is my favorite, but but Harry Styles is running a close second because he has a man bun). 'Where Do Broken Hearts Go?' is next on my list of yes tracks, followed by the bagpipe sounding-sound at the beginning of 'Girl Almighty'. Yes that is my favorite part of the song. I'm also kind of digging 'Stockholm Syndrome', and am currently fighting an urge to put in my ear buds and runway walk down the hallway to it.

One Direction definitely has some slower songs that I'm into, but this album didn't really do it for me on that front. I don't know if it was because I couldn't relate to the messages, or if the lyrics just weren't as descriptive as sometimes slower songs need to be, but I wasn't feeling the mellow tracks quite as much. They weren't all bad, though, my favorite of the ballads being '18', which
happened to be the one co-written by lyric maestro Ed Sheeran. It's probably because there's a story there, and a sweet little melody to boot.

So they got me to shell out the extra for the Deluxe Edition...and it was 100% percent worth it. Based on their previous albums, 1D's bonus tracks have become some of my favorite tracks, and this time was no exception. In fact, the bonus songs are actually some of my favorite songs on the whole album. That's most likely because I prefer One Direction just a little bit more when they're doing faster paced songs, and there just weren't enough of those for me on Four's regular track list. 'Change Your Ticket' and 'Illusion', are serious jams, and I have to freak over 'Act My Age' for just a second because that one really got me. It just makes me smile. From the very beginning, it had a totally unique sound thanks to that crazy jig that opened the song and kept it kicking throughout. And then the piano kicked in on the second verse and I had a little bit of a moment. The lyrics to this one were also just plain great because I haven't really heard the band sing anything like this before, and it's always cool when an artist goes somewhere new. It's just a really fun song. Like I could totally picture them laughing and doing some weird dance while they were recording it and idk if that was weird to say but whatever.

I also have to give a high five to 1D's production team because they are seriously ace. There's this echoey background chorus thing going on in a bunch of songs on Four that I'm really into, as well as some new sounds that have been brought in (aka bagpipes) and the rock and roll influences that have been steadily creeping in on every passing album. I love pretty much 99% of everything the band does, and credit has to be given to production. The majority of my favorite One Direction songs are fast tracks, and I love them because they're catchy, danceable, and they have the One Direction sound. Yes, it's pop, but there are usually some guitars in there, which take a little bit of edge off of bright and shiny bubblegum, which isn't really the group's thing, at least, they don't want it to be.

P.S. Shoutouts to John Ryan (one of the group's longtime collaborators) and Teddy Geiger (songwriter and producer on 'Where Do Broken Hearts Go?), who both hail from my hometown of Rochester, "third highest snowfall in the nation" New York. Sweet work guys!